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Decoherence and pointer states in small antiferromagnets: A benchmark test
by H. C. Donker, H. De Raedt, M. I. Katsnelson
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Submission summary
| Authors (as registered SciPost users): | Hylke Donker |
| Submission information | |
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| Preprint Link: | https://arxiv.org/abs/1612.03099v3 (pdf) |
| Date accepted: | 2017-02-24 |
| Date submitted: | 2017-02-17 01:00 |
| Submitted by: | Donker, Hylke |
| Submitted to: | SciPost Physics |
| Ontological classification | |
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| Academic field: | Physics |
| Specialties: |
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| Approach: | Computational |
Abstract
We study the decoherence process of a four spin-1/2 antiferromagnet that is coupled to an environment of spin-1/2 particles. The preferred basis of the antiferromagnet is discussed in two limiting cases and we identify two $\it{exact}$ pointer states. Decoherence near the two limits is examined whereby entropy is used to quantify the $\it{robustness}$ of states against environmental coupling. We find that close to the quantum measurement limit, the self-Hamiltonian of the system of interest can become dynamically relevant on macroscopic timescales. We illustrate this point by explicitly constructing a state that is more robust than (generic) states diagonal in the system-environment interaction Hamiltonian.
List of changes
1) The figures have been enlarged, in particular Figs. 2 & 5.
2) The units of time t is stressed in the captions of the figures.
Published as SciPost Phys. 2, 010 (2017)